Knowing when to seek emergency dental care is an important part of maintaining good oral health. If you’re like most people, you already know that you need to see a dentist as soon as possible if you get a tooth knocked out while playing sports or because of an accident. In the event of sudden tooth loss, you can maximize your chances of saving the tooth if you preserve it properly and see an emergency dentist right away. If this happens to you or someone in your family, quickly place the tooth in milk before leaving for your dentist’s office. Keep in mind that the quicker you can get there, the better the chances of the tooth remaining viable enough to be reattached. Here’s what else you need to know about when you should see an emergency dentist:

See Your Dentist if Tooth Pain Becomes Increasingly Painful

Tooth pain that doesn’t respond to conventional home treatments may be an indication of an infection — and it’s important to stem the infection before it goes systemic and affects other parts of the body. If the pain is accompanied by swelling, that may mean that one or more of your teeth has become abscessed, and this means that you’ve developed a serious infection that won’t go away on its own. If you suspect that you have an abscessed tooth, you should see an emergency dentist as soon as possible.

See Your Dentist if You’ve Experienced Substantial Dental Trauma

Not all dental emergencies involve getting a tooth knocked out or having an abscess or other serious infection. If you’ve experienced dental trauma to the point where one or more of your teeth are significantly loose or you’re in a great deal of pain, you should see an emergency dentist, especially if you have reason to suspect that the root of your tooth has become damaged or separated — you can lose the tooth even if it hasn’t become completely dislodged.

When in doubt about whether to seek emergency care, contact your emergency dentist for advice. Please feel free to reach out to us at your convenience to schedule an appointment or for more information on maintaining the best possible dental health.

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We hope that this letter finds you and your family in good health. Our community has been through a lot over the last few months, and all of us are looking forward to resuming our normal habits and routines. While many things have changed, one thing has remained the same: our commitment to safety.

Infection control has always been a top priority for our dental practice and you may have seen this during your visits to our office. Our infection control processes are made so that when you receive care, it’s both safe and comfortable. We want to tell you about the infection control procedures we follow in our practice to keep patients and staff safe.

Our office follows infection control recommendations made by the American Dental Association (ADA), the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). We follow the activities of these agencies so that we are up-to-date on any new rulings or guidance that may be issued. We do this to make sure that our infection control procedures are current and adhere to each agencies recommendations.

You may see some changes when it is time for your next appointment. We made these changes to help protect our patients and staff. For example:

-Our office will communicate with you beforehand to ask some screening questions. You’ll be asked the same questions again when you are in the office.

-When you arrive at our office for your appointment, please call or text us to let us know that you have arrived. We will come out to greet you and to take your temperature.

-We have hand sanitizer that we will ask you to use when you enter the office. You will also find some in the reception area and other places in the office for you to use as needed.

-You may see that our wedding room will no longer offer magazines, children’s toys and so forth, since those items are difficult to clean and disinfect.

-Appointments will be managed to allow for social distancing between patients. That might mean that you’re offered fewer options for scheduling your appointment.

-We will do our best to allow greater time between patients to reduce waiting times for you, so that we eliminate patients waiting in our reception area.

We look forward to seeing you again and are happy to answer any questions you may have about the steps we take to keep you, and every patient, safe in our practice. We will begin seeing patients on Monday, May 11, 2020. To make an appointment, please call or text our office at 304-744-4150.

Thank you for allowing us to serve you and your family and for being patient during this time. We value your trust and loyalty and look forward to welcoming back our patients, neighbors and friends.